Rory Smith is a football reporter for the Daily and Sunday Telegraph in the north west, covering Liverpool and Everton, as well as Manchester United, Manchester City and the myriad other teams who make up English football's heartland.

Why Roy Hodgson would have been better if he was Scottish

It would be easy to forget that Roy Hodgson had ever been manager of Liverpool. At Anfield and Melwood, the club's training base, there are no murals depicting his achievements or snapshots celebrating his success. His six months in charge of a team which was 7th and is now 6th in the Premier League seems like a fevered dream. He was not even afforded an obituary. The return of Kenny Dalglish in his stead saw to that; nobody cares about the fate of the impostor when there is a King to crown.

Now, more than a month on, is not the time to reopen his and the club's wounds, to discuss where the 63-year-old went wrong, or how he might have put it right. It is not the time to analyse whether what should have been the final step on the way to making him England manager – as the Kop were so desperate to see towards the end of his reign – ended up costing him his reputation and with it his place as Fabio Capello's successor.

Such a dissection would simply turn over old ground. Hodgson was, in whatever order you wish to place them, undone by his tactics, his team selections, his familiarity, his difference, his old employers, his new employers, the players he inherited and the players he signed. All played a part, of that there is no question. The curiosity is that Liverpool really should have seen this coming.

Not because Hodgson's record as a manager is one of consistent adequacy, rather than glory. Not because he seems to have barely won an away game since 1976. But because he was born in Croydon. They should have known never to hire a manager born in Croydon.

That is not to denigrate the home of British dubstep and erstwhile abode of Samuel Taylor-Coleridge. It is, though, an undeniable fact that Croydon is very much in the south of England. Few people in Croydon would even attempt to argue differently. And, in the south of England, they do not produce particularly good managers. Or, more accurately, they do not produce particularly good managers of northern football clubs.

Glasgow: now there is a place that produces good football managers. Of the current Premier League crop, six grew up near the banks of the Clyde – Dalglish himself, good-humoured raconteur Sir Alex Ferguson, former model Alex McLeish, the truculent Owen Coyle, surprisingly able Blackburn patsy Steve Kean and Cesc Fabregas fan club chief David Moyes.

It should be no surprise that all six are currently bolstering their reputations in the North West, either: traditionally, that is where Scots like to manage, when eventually they cross the border. In an analysis of the 100 most successful managers in English football history, the website rufff.net found that 44 per cent of those Scots who qualify earned their reputations, and their medals, in Lancashire. Perhaps they don't like to go further south than Bonnie Prince Charlie.

The other telling statistic relates to managers born in the South East, which is where Croydon famously lies. 12 of the 100 most successful managers come from London and its beautiful commuter belt – as opposed to 17 from Scotland, 16 from the North West and 18 from the North East – but the vast majority tend to remain near home. Arthur Rowe, Dave Sexton, Harry Redknapp: all succeeded on terra firma. Of those who ventured to the wilds of the north, Dave Bassett emerges as probably the most successful. Hodgson hardly stood a chance. Alan Pardew should back his bags and get back on the A1 now. Washington services are quite nice.

Northerners, on the other hand, seem to fare quite well in and around the capital – Herbert Chapman was from Rotherham and made his name at Huddersfield, Bill Nicholson came from Scarborough, Keith Burkinshaw was born in Barnsley. That suggests that, if there is a cultural difference which prevents managers functioning well in certain areas, it only works one way.

You can, as a wise man once said, prove anything with facts. That Hodgson says "castle" with a long a, not castle, as proper people do, and says "bath" instead of "standpipe," is unlikely to have made Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard decide not to listen to his tactical advice. That should not stop Fenway Sports Group – famously fans of statistics – considering birthplace when they come to decide on their permanent appointment. Dalglish's Scottishness, of course, rules him in as a candidate. That the highest number of successful managers comes from the North East, though, is telling. Maybe it is time to find the next Bob Paisley. Alan Shearer's available, isn't he?